Format Read: PDF converted to Kindle
Source: tour company in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: June 3, 2013
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Blurb from goodreads:
The hunky young PhD knows all about seduction, but what does he know about love?
Reagan Cassidy is settled in her life. She has a thriving interior design firm, an upscale condo, two cats, and a goldfish. As a favor to her uncle, she agrees to team up with his marine archeologist friend to validate and retrieve a nineteenth-century journal, reputedly that of a passenger aboard the doomed schooner Twelfth Sun. Finding a hunky twenty-five-year-old coming out of the shower in her hotel room wasn't part of the deal, but it's hard to complain...
Dr. Elijah Cross is cocky and he knows it. He enjoys trading barbs with the lovely Reagan. Barbs, and some innuendo. He can tell she'd rather get back home to her business than stick around for the extended treasure hunt they've been talked into, but he's fine with the situation. At least, until the 'clues' start getting personal.
Reagan finds Dr. Gorgeous is as skilled in matters of the heart as he is behind the lectern. Throw in a series of clues which mean more to Elijah than he'll explain, several odd-ball competitors out to win the journal, a saboteur, and a lavish seaside mansion, and Reagan has enough trouble keeping her head straight, let alone her heart.
WARNING: Younger man, older woman, nautical riddles and romance.
A Lyrical Press Contemporary Romance
Bea's Thoughts:
A hero who is both a geek AND a hunk?That's hard to pass up, especially as I've been, if not a geek, definitely a nerd. Dr Elijah Cross is a genius, a geek, a hunk, and emotionally closed off while Reagan is a cautious, smart, slightly older woman obsessed with propriety and appearances.
Elijah does live up to his geeky hunk creds but initially he comes off as arrogant, egotistical, and a smart ass; at first I had a hard time warming up to him. Slowly over the book as we spent more time in his head and got to know him better I started to like him better. Like many geniuses he has quirks and Reagan gets him, understands him as few do. Clair sketches the characters and makes them real; some are pleasant, some are not and a few were over the top. Reagan I had an easier time warming up to although she could be stuffy and judgmental. This scene takes place the morning after they have an embarrassing initial meeting the night before:
"...I'll meet you in the lobby in an hour." This time she did look at him.
He grinned slyly. "A morning rendezvous. I like the sound of that."
He was an impossible man, vain and self-centered. "Get over yourself," she snapped.
Elijah laughed. "If only I could."
There were some twists that I saw coming and others that took me by surprise. The plot is fairly simple and some cliches but the game that Reagan and Elijah play to find the journal is absurdly complicated and over the top. I didn't buy the motive for it; I understood the concerns of the person who devised the game, just not the need for this over the top scavenger hunt. But the hunt is fun as is the romance and the story makes for a a good poolside or beach read.
This one sounds really cute, I might just have to put it on my Summer reading list, I love a nerdy hero.
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